The Third Month: January
1st
Around midnight of the old year, I was holding T high on my shoulder, rubbing his back to calm him to sleep while fireworks exploded outside the bedroom window in Sandy Park, Liverpool, the house of his grandparents.
A difficult evening as we had tried to put him to bed since 8pm, by feeding him, rubbing his belly, and holding him. Each time he fell asleep for 10-15 minutes and then re-awoke crying. Sometimes even holding him could not comfort him. He has had a cough, a cold, and a snuffly nose, so somehow he needed more re-assurance. My week to ten days of semi-formed bedtime routing went to pot in Liverpool as we spent our evenings reading in our bedroom, as the ‘parlour’ is permanent fug of cherry tobacco smoke.
A few nights of semi-sleeplessness worrying about childhood illnesses/diseases and how much risk they pose to a new baby. When I’m breastfeeding I’m sometimes thinking/daydreaming about all sorts of things. The other evening I was reminiscing about my youth in Portobello, after a visit from Mary-Enna and family.
Often though, I look into little T’s face, enjoying the perfect shape of his head and his sometimes-open eyes, which are huge in the semi-darkness. At night he looks and seems different, usually perfectly calm, a little feeding creature. He really is a creature; his little sucking mouth that sucks even when he has dozed into perfect milky sleep, his great dark eyes that stare around the room, quite different to their daytime blue. I call him my little dormouse, my chipmunk, and hamster cheeks. P calls him Popsie and Popsicle, but usually I call him Baba. I feel we are just getting to know him.
When in Liverpool, all P’s family thought baby T looked like them, a replica of his cousin Tim as a baby, or his brother Bruno. There does seem to be a likeness, but I said to P I feel cheated! Where are my genes?? Of course my family see the likeness to them, but I think he’s definitely got the King nose.
He really is gorgeous. I look at him and wonder what he will be like in a few years, but at the same time, developing a sense of who he is now, a calm baby, a smiley boy who appears quite gregarious and chatty. Sometimes if he’s being held by others and catches my eye, or I look directly at him, his face lights up, it feels that he know me, his gaze meets mine and is transfixed.
24th
Your first train trip! (from Stapleton Rd to Clifton Down with Sophie and Samuel Shotter). Do you know that when you ring National Rail Enquiries you speak to someone in India?!
Around midnight of the old year, I was holding T high on my shoulder, rubbing his back to calm him to sleep while fireworks exploded outside the bedroom window in Sandy Park, Liverpool, the house of his grandparents.
A difficult evening as we had tried to put him to bed since 8pm, by feeding him, rubbing his belly, and holding him. Each time he fell asleep for 10-15 minutes and then re-awoke crying. Sometimes even holding him could not comfort him. He has had a cough, a cold, and a snuffly nose, so somehow he needed more re-assurance. My week to ten days of semi-formed bedtime routing went to pot in Liverpool as we spent our evenings reading in our bedroom, as the ‘parlour’ is permanent fug of cherry tobacco smoke.
A few nights of semi-sleeplessness worrying about childhood illnesses/diseases and how much risk they pose to a new baby. When I’m breastfeeding I’m sometimes thinking/daydreaming about all sorts of things. The other evening I was reminiscing about my youth in Portobello, after a visit from Mary-Enna and family.
Often though, I look into little T’s face, enjoying the perfect shape of his head and his sometimes-open eyes, which are huge in the semi-darkness. At night he looks and seems different, usually perfectly calm, a little feeding creature. He really is a creature; his little sucking mouth that sucks even when he has dozed into perfect milky sleep, his great dark eyes that stare around the room, quite different to their daytime blue. I call him my little dormouse, my chipmunk, and hamster cheeks. P calls him Popsie and Popsicle, but usually I call him Baba. I feel we are just getting to know him.
When in Liverpool, all P’s family thought baby T looked like them, a replica of his cousin Tim as a baby, or his brother Bruno. There does seem to be a likeness, but I said to P I feel cheated! Where are my genes?? Of course my family see the likeness to them, but I think he’s definitely got the King nose.
He really is gorgeous. I look at him and wonder what he will be like in a few years, but at the same time, developing a sense of who he is now, a calm baby, a smiley boy who appears quite gregarious and chatty. Sometimes if he’s being held by others and catches my eye, or I look directly at him, his face lights up, it feels that he know me, his gaze meets mine and is transfixed.
24th
Your first train trip! (from Stapleton Rd to Clifton Down with Sophie and Samuel Shotter). Do you know that when you ring National Rail Enquiries you speak to someone in India?!
posted by f at 11:04 PM
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